Going Dark: Days 8 & 9

I didn’t write last night because I didn’t have too much time. I’ve decided to work out. And I’ve decided to do it at 5:00 am. So, as you can imagine, I wanted to sleep a bit.

One of the great things about no cell phones at home is our home phone and Cyrus’s love of answering it. Any time it rings, which it seems to quite frequently, he screams, “I GOT IT!” Just like my childhood. He runs to answer it. “Hellllooooo,” he says in the way a 75 year old man would who is in the middle of smoking a cigar and hard of hearing.

The other cool thing, which Gaby just reminded me of, is how wonderful it is that the kids treat the home phone like it’s theirs. There is no caller i.d., so a phone call is exciting. We don’t know who it is. Mom and Dad have been calling Cyrus there a lot, and Erika’s dad only calls our house number now. Erika pretends she hates all of this, but I know she’s really enjoying having a phone. (Did I mention she doesn’t have her own, anyway? Which is unheard of for a 13 year old these days). Gaby also taught her how to *69. Mary, Gaby’s friend, called one night and told her how to pick up the other phone and listen in on phone calls. Erika’s mind was blown that this was even possible. Unfortunately for her, Gaby and I both have a lot of experience in this area and so we’re very good at detecting when the other line picks up.

So last night the phone rang, and Cyrus answered. Then I heard him say, “Who are you?” And then he said, “Chris?” And then I saw his face scrunch, like he couldn’t even be bothered with such a ridiculous phone call, especially since it wasn’t for him. He was ready to hang up, but I grabbed it from him. Phone etiquette is something we’re going to work on.

I was happy to hear the voices of some of my rugby teammates. They were all at McNally’s celebrating another teammate’s surgery. I asked them to talk to me like they were posting in the group facebook page. Instead, we had more of a real conversation. They said they missed me and wondered if our experiment meant I couldn’t come out to the bar. I don’t think it means that, but it’s funny that I do feel a bit isolated. I don’t get news the way I used to. I mean, I still listen to NPR when I’m driving to and from work, but I miss out on the other stories that I used to see on Facebook and then try to investigate.

There’s no constant stream of information and updates. My phone no longer makes 6 different noises that I can’t decipher. I no longer sit half-listening to what my family is saying while I’m wondering who texted, tweeted, instagramed, messaged, whatever. I don’t have constant hatred, either, wondering what the fucking cheeto-faced leader is doing. So, that’s really nice.

I got another card in the mail last night from a very good friend’s aunt and her partner: people I’ve met once. And just now I see that someone I don’t know commented on my blog that she was really enjoying reading.

As I told you, this weekend was very challenging. Weekdays are just fine. Only occasionally do Gaby and I stare longingly at the tv in our bed room.

I think after our month-long challenge, we’ll not only have better habits, but maybe make it a rule that no screens are allowed during the week. Or maybe not before dinner. Or some other big restrictions. We haven’t really decided yet. I mean, we’re only 9 days in.

The next big challenge will happen this weekend. We have a three day weekend and Gaby will be working quite a bit of it. That means me, “hey, mom,” and “this is the stupidest idea ever” will be hanging out a lot.

The weather is supposed to be more than 5 degrees, so I might resort to the phrase I heard from adults when I was growing up “go play outside.”